If China says the majority of Hong Kong support immediate reunification, backed by a statement from the Hong Kong government, is that an "obvious lie"? It comes from what is considered to be an authoritative source of truth.
If Google can overrule a government's statement, by disagreeing with China, does that mean they can overrule the official statement of any government?
That gives them the power, and incentive, to approve some statements that come from the White House, and not others that might damage their own reputation.
Or rather, knowing Google, approval of these goes through a machine, with unknown bias, and suddenly Google is only approving right-wing messages. All Democrat messages get disapproved. Or vice versa.
It places Google in position as the ultimate source of truth, without giving them the responsibility that comes with that.
On the other hand, if google replies to the query "labour manifesto" and the top link is an ad to "labourmanifesto.co.uk" that is actually run by the conservative party, that's the same category of fraud as if I entered "chase bank" and was sent to a phishing site. Allowing that ad in response to that query is defrauding voters.
Being the largest source of information in the world while being completely indifferent as to whether that information is true or not is an amazingly nihilistic, amoral position to take.
I think the most sensible thing for any ad agency to do is to ban _all_ political ads.
It may become difficult for them to differentiate what is and isn't a political ad (an ad for a gay dating app could be construed as a political ad in some nations), but they need to remove themselves from any seat of responsibility.
Based on your questions and comments I get the feeling I am communicating with someone who does not know that journalism exists or how it is supposed to work. What constitutes an "obvious lie"? is not even close to being an intractable problem. Reporting what China said is not the same thing as putting it forward as the truth. Determining whether it is the truth or not is not necessarily an impossible task. Etc. etc.
It's true enough that Google will experience some pressure to kowtow to the governments or powerful interests who have the ability to lean on them, and that is probably a pretty good argument to get out of the business of political advertising altogether. "What is truth anyway, man????" is not much of an argument.
> Based on your questions and comments I get the feeling I am communicating with someone who does not know that journalism exists or how it is supposed to work.
I'll try not to take offense at that.
I'm just someone who has lived under an authoritarian regime where what is "truth" has been actively manipulated by the powers that be - dissenting opinions were made illegal.
> "What is truth anyway, man????" is not much of an argument.
That wasn't the "crux" of the argument.
No advertising company should be in the business of deciding what to report as truth. If they are, complying with local laws about what is "truth" may in fact be completely antithetical to the pretense of fact checking.
The most sensible solution for someone like Google is banning political advertising altogether - not putting themselves in a position where they may be required to act as propaganda mouthpieces.
If China says the majority of Hong Kong support immediate reunification, backed by a statement from the Hong Kong government, is that an "obvious lie"? It comes from what is considered to be an authoritative source of truth.
If Google can overrule a government's statement, by disagreeing with China, does that mean they can overrule the official statement of any government?
That gives them the power, and incentive, to approve some statements that come from the White House, and not others that might damage their own reputation.
Or rather, knowing Google, approval of these goes through a machine, with unknown bias, and suddenly Google is only approving right-wing messages. All Democrat messages get disapproved. Or vice versa.
It places Google in position as the ultimate source of truth, without giving them the responsibility that comes with that.